Consider a few data points that back this up: According to IDC's Third Annual Buyer Experience Study: Guidance for Sales & Marketing, released in April 2010, respondents rated "consumption of vendor content" as the most important part of their pre-purchase activities for IT products or solutions. After all, it's where the research process often begins.

The original intent was to paint the entire picture of the buyer experience to help inform an organization's future strategy for business, sales, and marketing. For years, marketing and sales have looked through the “funnel/single-buyer lens.” When buyers are seeking to make a purchase, they’re not doing so in a funnel.

[Funnel, Sales] How to Overcome the Four Main Challenges in B2B Content Marketing

started my career in B2B sales and quickly grew frustrated with the content being produced by my marketing colleagues. With our longer sales cycles and larger buying teams, B2B organizations need to be able to create and deploy the right content at the right time to meet each customer organization’s unique buying process. Director of Marketing for SAP. How hard can that be, right?

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SAVVY B2B MARKETING

JULY 15, 2009

[Funnel, Sales] Lose Control: Three Reasons Not to Require Registration for B2B Content

I've read -- and experienced -- the pains in the lead follow up process: marketing collects leads, passes them to sales, sales calls a few and gets no where and declares the leads "junk." " The issue, of course, is that the leads marketing is turning over are not sales-ready. I've been thinking a lot of the registration process lately. What's the harm in that?

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SAVVY B2B MARKETING

JULY 15, 2009

[Funnel, Sales] Lose Control: Three Reasons Not to Require Registration for B2B Content

I've read -- and experienced -- the pains in the lead follow up process: marketing collects leads, passes them to sales, sales calls a few and gets no where and declares the leads "junk." " The issue, of course, is that the leads marketing is turning over are not sales-ready. I've been thinking a lot of the registration process lately. What's the harm in that?

If a prospect wanted information on a product or service, he or she had to approach the company and get inserted into its sales process. They have to stop focusing on the sales cycle and instead focus on the buying cycle. Talk to your sales team to understand buyer roles. If we don't produce relevant content, it won't do any good to funnel it into a Web 2.0 enables that.

If a prospect wanted information on a product or service, he or she had to approach the company and get inserted into its sales process. They have to stop focusing on the sales cycle and instead focus on the buying cycle. The more robust you can make the role, the more you'll be able improve the Web experience and tone and style of writing, the more relevant you can make your branding, and the more you can improve sales readiness and optimize the marketing mix. Talk to your sales team to understand buyer roles. Here he shares his thoughts on the impact Web 2.0 world?
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Advanced Content – Contrary to popular belief, just because someone has visited your blog or website doesn’t mean they’ve entered the top of your salesfunnel. After this transaction occurs the visitor is at the top of the funnel (TOFU) and can be placed in a lead nurturing email campaign with the intent of moving them down the funnel. However, it also helps define TOFU and middle of the funnel (MOFU) content. Content marketing is a really hot topic these days and is considered the foundation of any good inbound marketing strategy.
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[Funnel, Sales] Three Tips to Get Manufacturers Started with Social Media

Use LinkedIn to Help Fill the SalesFunnel. Manufacturers can use LinkedIn to prime the salesfunnel if they leverage their connections. Considering that after you have a few hundred connections your network extends into the millions, LinkedIn can be a great way to get in touch with potential sales contacts. Business-to-business (B2B) companies are starting to embrace social media to a greater extent these days. According to a report by Forrester , roughly 81 percent of B2B companies reported that they used social media in 2011.
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[Funnel, Sales] 8 Ways to Make Your Content More Like Personal Conversations

In an ideal marketing and sales world, we’d all enjoy the opportunity to talk in person with each and every prospect. Great content succeeds when it gets you found, instantly engages your prospects and converts them to the next target stage in your salesfunnel. Reflect on your great personal connections with current prospects and customers, as well as on stories and anecdotes your colleagues in marketing and sales share with you about their successful connections. In B2B days gone by, serving began when the sale closed and solution delivery started.
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Solicit Sales Feedback Marketers Can Use by @ardath421 A great set of questions to help marketers uncover the information they need to develop solid strategies. Focus Experts' Guide: Sales and Marketing Pipeline and Funnel Models - via @funnelholic Think there's only one version of the salesfunnel? Build a Content Map to be Your Creation Guide for your Blog and More - by @treypennington (Video) Pamela Slim, Author or Escape from Cubicle Nation, talks with Trey about how to match content to each stage of your salesfunnel. Tweet
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